Automatic Number Identification (ANI) in the United States, and similar services worldwide, is a telephony service which captures the telephone number of calling parties and relays the data to the called party. A calling party is the person or entity who initiated or caused a phone call to be made on a phone system whereas a called party is the intended recipient, devices of the recipient, or a phone number associated with the recipient, of the phone call. ANI service is typically used in conjunction with “toll free” numbers which allow a calling party to call another free of charge and the called party to pay the phone charges to the phone company. As such, the called party receives, either in real-time or in an invoice at a later time, the number of the calling party so that the called party can track where it's expenses are originating from.
ANI is part of Inward Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS). Typically, a calling party dials a number having an area code beginning with 800, 888, 877, 866, 855, 844, 833, or 822 (not all are used at the time of writing) and reaches an Inward WATS subscribed (called party) who receives ANI information, such as the phone number of the calling party and the number dialed. (In the United States, DNIS or dialed number identification service is used to provide the dialed number information).
ANI, and its counterparts around the world, is functionally different than Caller ID. Caller ID information may be blocked by the calling party such that information about the calling party is not passed to the called party. This may be accomplished by not sending the Caller ID data or by sending a flag (i.e. a bit) to the service provider which instructs the service provider of the called party to keep the data private. However, since ANI is unrelated to caller ID, the caller's telephone number and line type are typically captured by ANI equipment even if caller ID blocking is activated. The destination telephone company switching office can relay the originating telephone number to ANI delivery services subscribers.
Outside of those with toll free numbers, typically, ANI service is unavailable to the end user. Thus, unless caller ID information is forwarded to the called party, the party will not receive information about the calling party, such as the calling party's phone number or name. Government regulations require phone companies to abide by the privacy criteria set by the calling party. Still further, caller ID information can be “spoofed” fairly easily. Numerous legitimate and illegitimate services exist for providing incorrect caller ID information to a called party. Thus, there is no guarantee that the information is accurate. By contract, ANI information is extremely difficult to spoof and is always passed to the called party.
The ability to block and/or spoof caller ID information, while oftentimes legitimate, is problematic such as when the caller is pranking or harassing the party he or she is calling or if the party is calling an emergency service and is disconnected before relaying important information about the emergency. Unfortunately, for non-Inward WATS subscribers (i.e. those without toll-free service), in such instances, it is difficult or impossible to determine who is calling in a timely fashion.
While methods exist for converting ANI information to Caller ID information, such as is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,996,217 to Goldman, these methods require the called party to instruct the calling party to use a toll-free number. This is often impractical and would require the called party to pay for all calls. It is undesirable for a typical home or cellular phone user, emergency service provider, or even many small and medium sized businesses, to pay for incoming calls. Caller ID, by contract, costs much less to purchase and is often an included feature with a monthly or yearly payment for a phone line.
It is desired to develop a system and method which affords the benefits of ANI and Caller ID while minimizing or negating the disadvantages of each.